L'uomo che uccideva a sangue freddo

Very good horror thriller, very atmospheric since the beginning, with a good social political background. Weird situations and bizarre blasé rich people make spectator feel uncomfortable. Nice action and story, disturbing. Appropriate end.

The biggest shock was watching the interview with the director, Jessua, on the special features disc. Anyone less like a movie personality would be hard to imagine. More like your friendly neighbourhood greengrocer. How did this guy ever stray into the cinematic world ? If this flick became a success it was because it presented two stars, in roles which did not type-cast them. There is also an extended, reasonably unshocking, nudist scene of numerous extras at the seaside. Including the stars, Delon and Girardot. Hilarious. Weird is not the word. Plot and direction are beyond eccentric. Positively peculiar. Sort of haphazard. Murder, immigrant exploitation, police and other corruption are the message. Same as what used to be that of the News of the World, of distant British memory. Shock enjoyed for phony moral reasons.

38-year-old businesswoman (Annie Girardot), healthy but exhausted from work, takes the advice of her gay friend and checks into a rehabilitation spa overlooking the ocean. The institute specializes in living cell therapy, the menu consists of seaweed dishes, and a notice on the wall claims "your physical posture reflects the state of your psyche". It all looks good from the outset, but the new arrival's first hint of trouble comes while observing the frightened staff, the other clients, and even some of the locals, all of whom behave strangely...and then her gay friend maybe/maybe not commits suicide after warning her about the clinic's "monstrous horrors". French-Italian co-production, an early precursor to the For God's Sake, Get Out! Thriller genre, has been expertly-crafted for the most part by director and co-writer Alain Jessua, though one does wish the heroine made more sense as a character (she's sleeping with power-mad head honcho Alain Delon one minute and spying on him the next). Still intriguing, with rueful finish. *** from ****

'Shock Treatment' is the quoted translation at the start of this Alain Delon flick, part of the Alain Delon 'Screen Icons' box-set. The title used by IMDb stinks of Carry On innuendo as it belittles a popular sort of subject when it was made in 1973.

Rejuvenation and cosmetic beautification and its perceived ramifications were subjects handled quite a bit by the likes of Michael Crichton and this rather strange brew of beauty and savagery quite neatly stitches these two aspects together.

Annie Girardot plays the retail executive out to get some posh spa treatment at the exclusive resort run by the sinister Dr Devilers (Delon). Amongst the carrot juice cocktails and seaweed scrubs are life- affirming injections, whilst the ever rotating staff of illegally working Portuguese young male staff are despondent for some reason. A fellow patient mysteriously commits suicide and so Girardot goes on the prowl and does some investigating.

The explicit nudity was indeed an eye opener as I was only aware beforehand that it was cert 15 but of course all that frivolity, naturalness and freedom comes at a price. It all becomes nicely sickening the more we know as to how the clinic works and how it gets its medical "powers".

All in all, it's quite fun, suspenseful and macabre but please don't think that it's a cheesy comedy that's only out for cheap laughs that its popular title conveys.

The curse of French cinema: as it is (heavily) subsidized, people with really original ideas get to shoot them while they are either not necessary talented directors, or not being challenged enough for the ideas to blossom into a great feature.

Shock Treatment is a perfect example. The premise, the synopsis are exciting aplenty, but we only get a pedestrian rendition of it. Basically, apart from the view of Belle-Ile, you would almost be better off reading the summary of the movie instead of sitting through this piece of monotonous movie-making.